A Journey and Exploration of Social Networking Tools and media. How it can be used for a variety of purposes. Here you will find my own adventures with Social Networking in a variety of fields.
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Tuesday, 17 August 2010

Games on Facebook - Addictive - A Concern - Yes - Part 1

Games on facebook, no danger or is there????

What began as a bit of fun an outlet, turned into curiosity and what I felt was research. What happened next I was not prepared for and only now feel free to share.

When I first began to puddle around on facebook, some years ago now, I found a couple of games within the applications that were a bit of fun and just a release from other chores. The games I settled on were Vampires and Poker. Neither of them took much time out of my day. I popped into see how my Vampire was doing, she was pretty cute and it was quite satisfying biting other people (all friends who I knew). They gave as good as they got and in the end we had a nice Vampire friendly army. With this game at the time, there was of course the incentive to gather friends as you went, and in those days it was easy to keep track of friends and vet them as required, for safety reasons of course. I chose who I played with and could continue the game regardless. Mindless fun, free of charge (apart from internet connection and time) and I learnt that my competitive streak was still strong - I wanted to get to the next levels, so I bit as many of my friends as often as possible - it was a good laugh:)

My mind became somewhat distracted overtime as adds began to appear on the Vampire game page. I realised and admired I must say the cleverness of those who had developed the game. This was not just a game, it was a business with great marketing. Imagine, developing the game and each time a new Vampire movie came out, you got to advertise it - even click per view and the money would be rolling in. Whilst I admired the developers, I quickly lost interest as it took longer to load the game with adds rolling all around the place. For me at the time the fun had gone but the learning experience was great.

I will not talk about Poker too much needless to say I found more in it than a game, lucky as I am a lousy player. I still think that when I would pop into a table, others would rub their hands and say 'she is back, yay, our cash cow has arrived. No fear, again it was fun, it did not cost money to play, you just popped in and out at will. Again I did find it more interesting than just a game, I made new friends. These friends were people playing, who I would check out (their profiles) and see if there was any strategic connection between us. I made friends with people in the music arena, learning arena and business, people I could vet and qualify as being who they said they were, friends who added value to my being on facebook. I still to this day remain connected to many of these people and I hope it has been a win win situation on a personal and professional level. It is amazing who you will find sitting at a poker table.

My journey with games took a break, interesting yes, but far too many by then offered in the applications, I simply could not decide.

I was then sent not that long ago a request to become a Zoo friend. Yikes, the journey changed and addiction began.

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"To allow fear to be in control of one's life, is to limit oneself and all around you. Connect with your children, with your learners. Understand them, understand their worlds and grow with them, not against them".